Thursday, April 14, 2011

Trivia: This film has yet to receive a UK certificate, and was rated X by the MPAA

Our introduction to the world of I Drink Your Blood is by way of a Satanic ritual, and let me tell you, as rituals go, this is a strange one. In the middle of the woods, a long-haired, naked hippie named Horace (Bhaskar Roy Chowdhury) is preaching to his disciples (also naked) about the power of Satan. He passes around a chalice that's been laced with LSD (“Let it be known”, he says, “that Satan was an acid-head”), and has everyone drink from it. A chicken's throat is cut (definitely NOT special effects...that sucker's head is damn near severed), and the blood drips all over the body of another naked follower, who's been tied to the ground. Just then, Horace spots a young girl (Iris Brooks) spying on them through the trees, and orders her stripped and beaten. The poor girl, whose name is Sylvia, barely escapes with her life.

From that point on, things get downright crazy!

When their van breaks down, the cult members, eight in all, find themselves stranded in a small, nearly-deserted town. Looking for shelter, Horace and the others ask Mildred Nash (Elizabeth Marner Brooks), who runs the local bakery, where they might find a hotel. When she tells them the only one in town's been closed for months, the eight, hoping to take advantage of the isolation, break into the abandoned building and take up "temporary residence" there. What they don't know is Sylvia, the girl they assaulted the night before, lives in this town, and her grandfather (Richard Bowler) has decided to exact a little revenge on Horace and his followers. But when the cult members beat and drug the old man, his grandson, Pete (Riley Mills), Sylvia's little brother, takes matters into his own hands. Having just shot and killed a rabid dog, Pete draws blood from the animal's carcass and injects it into some of Mildred Nash's freshly-baked meat pies, which he then gives to the Satanists. Unfortunately, Pete's plan to infect them with the deadly disease works a little too well, and it isn't long before an outbreak of rabies has engulfed the entire town.

One of the things I enjoy most about extreme movies like I Drink Your Blood is seeing how far the filmmakers are willing to push the envelope; exactly how crazy will they let things get? In the case of I Drink Your Blood, it looks as if the sky was the limit. Shortly after “moving in” to the old hotel, the eight Satanists partake in a rat hunt, to see which of them can find and kill the most rats. Once they've gathered up enough of the furry little creatures, they move the party outside, where the rats are cooked, shish kebab style, over an open flame. Naturally, things get much worse after they've been infected with rabies. Rollo (George Patterson) is the first of the group to lose his mind, stabbing fellow Satanist Shelley (Alex Mann) ten times with a butcher's knife before cutting off part of Shelley's leg with an ax.
And if you think that's bad, just wait 'til you see what the pregnant girl does with the wooden stake!

I Drink Your Blood was one of the first films to receive an X rating from the MPAA for violence, and it earned every bit of it. But don't let this frighten you off; I Drink Your Blood may be a nasty little film, but it's also a fascinating one, and I can guarantee you'll never be bored watching it.